The Delhi High Court on Tuesday granted bail to student activists Devangana Kalita, Natasha Narwal and Asif Iqbal Tanha in a case related to the violence in Northeast Delhi in February 2020, Bar and Bench reported.

Kalita and Narwal are members of women’s rights group Pinjra Tod, while Tanha is a student from Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi. They were charged under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act in the case.

A bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Anup J Bhambhani passed the bail order on Tuesday.

Clashes had broken out between supporters of the Citizenship Amendment Act and those opposing it between February 23 and 26 last year in North East Delhi, killing at least 53 people and injuring hundreds. The police were accused of either inaction or complicity in some instances of violence, mostly in Muslim neighbourhoods. The violence was the worst in Delhi since the anti-Sikh riots of 1984.

The Delhi Police claim that the violence was part of a larger conspiracy to defame Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government and was planned by those who organised the protests against the amended Citizenship Amendment Act. They also claimed the protestors had secessionist motives and were using “the facade of civil disobedience” to destabilise the government. The police have arrested several activists and students based on these “conspiracy” charges.

Tanha, Kalita and Narwal were named in the main chargesheet filed in the case in September. A supplementary chargesheet was filed in November against activist Umar Khalid and Jawaharlal Nehru University student Sharjeel Imam in the alleged conspiracy behind the communal violence.